


Say Something

by agustbubu



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety Disorder, Lee Taeyong & Nakamoto Yuta Are Best Friends, Lee Taeyong Needs a Hug, Lee Taeyong-centric, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Therapy, mention of suicidal thoughts, selective mutism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23429377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agustbubu/pseuds/agustbubu
Summary: "He was just a kid when his mother realised Taeyong sometimes didn’t speak. She could see his big eyes filled with curiosity, and his mouth slightly open. Still, nothing would come out, no whys, no hows, yet she could tell he was just as curious as any other kid, if not more. So, she couldn’t really understand why Taeyong wouldn’t just speak."or, Taeyong wants to speak so badly, but sometimes he can't, nor can he explain that to people. Along the way, he finds people that are willing to wait and understand without him having to say anything.
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 2
Kudos: 177





	Say Something

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone!  
> As someone that has struggled with selective mutism, I wanted to write something about it. If you're here mainly for Johnyong content, beware because that only comes in later in the story, this is way more centred around Taeyong and his struggles. 
> 
> Also, I didn't put it in the tags because I didn't deem it necessary, but at some point it is implied that Taeyong struggled with panic attacks but it is mentioned in one sentence only, hence the decision to not include it in the tags.
> 
> That being said, enjoy!

Contrary to popular belief, Taeyong didn’t dislike people. He didn’t love them either, but it’s not like he hated having people around him. On that front, he was just like any other regular person. Yet, his words, or lack of thereof, were often misinterpreted, and there was nothing he could do to defend himself anyway. Well, there was something he could do, but he also couldn’t. 

He was just a kid when his mother realised Taeyong sometimes didn’t speak. She could see his big eyes filled with curiosity, and his mouth slightly open. Still, nothing would come out, no whys, no hows, yet she could tell he was just as curious as any other kid, if not more. So, she couldn’t really understand why Taeyong wouldn’t just _speak_. 

One morning she had decided to bring him to a doctor, but they were sent home being told that she was worrying too much and that Taeyong was just extremely shy. That he was fully capable of understanding what people were saying, proved by the fact that during the appointment he’d find his own ways to answer the doctor’s questions, but never hesitated or seemed confused whenever he nodded or shook his head.

To furthermore prove his point, he had given Taeyong pencil and paper and once again, he was fully capable of answering questions, just not in the way other kids did. The doctor even had the nerve to compliment Taeyong because of how well he could write despite the fact that he had yet to even start school. 

“Give him time,” the doctor had told her with a condescending tone. She left, feeling extremely frustrated. She knew Taeyong could understand, she knew he was a very bright kid too, Taeyong was nothing short of an angel, and she couldn’t have been more proud of him, even when he didn’t speak but found other ways to do so. But she also knew that it wasn’t just him being shy. 

Taeyong pulled her hand down to get her attention. “Am I OK, mum?” he asked her quietly as if he was telling her a secret others couldn’t hear. 

She smiled immediately, not wanting to give him any cues he could pick up that would indicate that something was wrong, realising that he had probably figured that her distress must have been due to the doctor visit. “Yes, honey, you’re OK, we both are.”

They went home, and for a while, she waited. But then school started, and the teachers would all tell her the same things. “He knows the answers to most questions, he just doesn’t say them, not even when we call his name,” was something she had heard from all his teachers, and every time she didn’t know what to say.

She once asked something she had been scared to ask, “Does he have any friends?”

Taeyong never came home asking if someone could come over to play, nor did he ask if he could go to someone else’s place. When he came back from school, all he would talk about was what he drew or the games he had played during recess. From his descriptions, rather than going to school, one would have assumed that Taeyong went to some leisure centre for kids that just so happened to be completely empty. 

It turned out that Taeyong actually talked to some of his classmates and that he would get invited to things, he just never replied to those invites. She then decided to speak to another doctor. This doctor didn’t immediately jump to the conclusion that Taeyong was simply a very shy kid. Instead, he suggested several things that they could asses in one way or another.

Autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety. They were all heavy words that scared her for different reasons. She knew that since it wasn’t just shyness, at some point at least one doctor would have brought up some kind of disorder, but expecting it didn’t make it any less scary. She was afraid of the thought that he might struggle more than others for the rest of his life, and that she wouldn’t always be there to help. 

Over time, most of those suggestions were ruled out. What was left was anxiety. According to the doctor, Taeyong was probably avoiding situations that made him anxious by removing himself from specific conversations. On top of that, other elements that would point towards this diagnosis were his difficulty in concentrating, hence the endless drawing at school rather than listening, and also the way he had trouble sleeping at night and needed a night light to sleep, too afraid something terrible could happen. 

Having a kid that has an anxiety disorder turned out to be an interesting experience to say the least, as his mother herself couldn’t be anxious around him to avoid him getting more anxious but deep down she was always worried. She just couldn’t show it. 

Time passed, and Taeyong was doing better. He could sleep better, he had gone to a couple of birthday parties here and there, he would sometimes go to a nearby playground with some friends, and his mother could finally breathe again. 

When Taeyong was 13 years old, his dad left them. It wasn’t dramatic or tragic, there were no huge fights leading up to that moment, and neither of them was cheating. Taeyong went to bed with his dad wishing him a good night, and he woke up without a father. It had been as simple as that. 

Needless to say, things got worse again. Now Taeyong was old enough to be able to understand what was going on with him, but he didn’t know how to describe it. So he tried his best to hide it, not wanting to cause even more pain to his family, and his mother was too focused on hiding her own issues to notice certain details anyway.

That was how things continued throughout high school as well. Most people didn’t bother with him anymore, thinking that he was rude in not answering specific questions, or that he was just way too shy. Other people took it personally. Those were the moments were Taeyong just wished he could have said something, anything, but once again, he couldn’t, and no one was there to take his side. 

Things changed when Nakamoto Yuta arrived. He had recently moved from Osaka to Seoul, he was cool, funny but also blunt and honest. For a while, people focused their attention on him instead, until they started to realise that it wouldn’t be that easy to befriend him, so slowly people began to give up.

One day, Mae Kwangsoo decided to start bothering Taeyong again. He was answering questions he knew Taeyong wasn’t going to respond to, so Taeyong decided to zone him out and let him do his thing. Yuta stood up and reached his desk. “I don’t really like milk, so here you go,” he gave him his carton of milk, as Kwangsoo had stolen Taeyong’s. 

Kwangsoo looked like he was about to say something else, but then Yuta looked at him and smiled. “Can you leave now? Thanks,” and waved goodbye as he waited for him to go back to his seat. The thing about Yuta was that he sometimes looked like he was fully capable of hurting anyone that bothered him despite having the biggest smile on his face, so Taeyong couldn’t blame Kwangsoo for being scared of him too. 

Yuta took a random chair and sat in front of Taeyong. “I don’t think I’ve ever introduced myself, I’m Yuta.” 

“I don’t need your help, by the way.” Taeyong had become used to being defensive all the time, even though he often hated it. He didn’t speak much, and the few times he did, he probably sounded like a dickhead. 

“I know you don’t, I still chose to help, that’s what friends do,” Yuta replied, completely unphased and still smiling at him.

Taeyong raised his eyebrows. “Friends?”

“Friends, yeah,” Yuta crossed his arms and put them on Taeyong’s desk, “let’s keep this between us, everyone in this class is so boring, but we’re not, so I feel like we should stick together.”

And that they did. Taeyong had friends before, he wasn’t that much of a loner, but it seemed like those friendships existed mainly due to the fact that they had to see each other almost every day at school more than anything else, so those friendships would easily dissipate whenever classes would change. 

Yuta was the first person that Taeyong could see in his future, and that he _wanted_ to keep in his future. It seemed like there wasn’t much that could phase him, and he often just went with Taeyong’s flow. If Taeyong didn’t answer a question, he would ask it again to make sure he had heard him, but if he still didn’t get an answer, he moved on.

Even when Taeyong ghosted him, Yuta would just repeat what he had said in the text to his face when Taeyong seemed in a mood to talk, and he never held it against him. Eventually, that made him feel more comfortable around Yuta, but that didn’t mean that talking was always easy. 

When Doyoung and Ten got added into their little bubble, Taeyong wondered if Yuta got tired of not having anyone that he could have a proper conversation with. After that, Taeyong didn’t speak a word for 32 hours. Luckily for him, it was had happened during a weekend, so he could get away with it. 

When he arrived at school on Monday, Yuta wasn’t there, so at lunch, Taeyong was sat with Doyoung and Ten. He couldn’t help but feel bad because they seemed like good people, so Taeyong tried his best, and when he felt like he could, he started talking to them. 

And just like that, it was the four of them against the world. Some people from his class still wondered why Yuta would decide to hang out with Taeyong of all people, but neither of them cared. 

His mother was elated to see that he had friends that he seemed to genuinely love. If a couple of times he found himself closed in a bathroom stall as Doyoung asked him to unlock it and reminded him to breathe, if sometimes he lived his own life as a spectator, unable to interact or say anything no matter how much he wanted to, if he felt like he was missing out on life, she didn’t need to know. 

Everything was fine, Taeyong was fine. Until nothing was.

*****

The first time Taeyong thought about dying, he had been 11 years old. He wondered what it must feel like, he wondered what could happen, but then pushed those thoughts at the back of his head. The problem with pushing your feelings away like that is that they never leave, almost like a CD that you place on a desk just to forget about it, as it waits for you to wipe the dust away and play it again after ages. 

He found himself picking up that specific CD again during his first year of university. He was sitting on the rooftop of one of the buildings on his campus. He wasn’t going to jump, he didn’t even get there to do that, but as he tried his best not to look down, he couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened. 

His funeral would be so depressing to attend, with only a couple of friends, his mother, his sister and a bunch of relatives whose last mental image of him must have been from when he was in elementary school. He felt sorry for himself.

“Don’t do it,” someone said behind him. Taeyong got scared and jumped slightly, just to suddenly feel in a precarious position, and ended up pushing himself backwards, not wanting to mistakenly jump forward. 

He was now sitting on the floor, and he could feel how hard his heart was beating. “Fucking hell,” he whispered and looked at the source of the voice, “advice for the next time you’ll find yourself in a similar situation, if you don’t want someone to die, don’t scare them to death like that.”

“I’m sorry, I just didn’t expect someone to be sitting on the edge like that and I acted without thinking about it.” The stranger, who looked extremely apologetic, walked towards him and offered him his hand to help him up on his feet. Taeyong accepted his help and then tried to remove any dust or dirt that was on the back of his trousers. “I’m Johnny, by the way.”

Taeyong looked up and realised just how tall the guy was. “I’m Taeyong.” They looked at each other and started laughing at the absurdity of the situation. They stayed on the rooftop together to look at the stairs. And to talk. 

It didn’t take him long to fall in love with Johnny, and it was scary. It got even more terrifying when Johnny confessed his feelings to him. Taeyong didn’t think he could do relationships, but he still said yes when Johnny asked him on a date. 

There were times were Taeyong hated himself more than the usual. Sometimes Johnny would tell him stories about himself and his past, and Taeyong wanted so desperately to react, to say something, to let him know that he was listening and that he cared. All he could do was looking at him and nodding from time to time.

Taeyong realised, mainly thanks to Ten, that his fear of fucking up only made things worse. He had stopped caring about his relationships with others a long time ago, if they could understand and be patient, then Taeyong would also try his best; otherwise he didn’t let things bother him too much. 

With Johnny, however, it was different because he so desperately wanted him to understand, but that only made it harder for Taeyong to say things sometimes. Johnny would ask him where he wanted to go for lunch, if he preferred going out on Wednesday or Thursday, if he liked a shirt Johnny wanted to buy, and Taeyong was always too afraid of making any kind of choice.

He knew that answers like “It’s up to you,” and “You decide” could get tiring soon, so a lot of the times Taeyong resorted to shrugging his shoulders or worse, not saying anything. Taeyong could see how Johnny went from making those choices himself without giving it too much thought to him hesitating and looking at Taeyong with questions clearly forming in his head. Questions he never asked. 

Taeyong felt like he had ruined everything once when they slept together. Johnny would always make sure Taeyong was OK with what they were doing at all times, so he’d ask questions, he’d say comforting words, and Taeyong would often keep his mouth shut, either too overwhelmed by pleasure to give a verbal response or because his brain was stopping him from saying anything despite wanting to. 

He would still make sure to give some sort of answer, and Taeyong appreciated all of this attention that Johnny would give him. Johnny didn’t want to do one single thing that Taeyong wasn’t comfortable with, and it was one of the many things he loved about Johnny, but sometimes he could tell that he was looking for verbal answers as well, and got worried when he didn’t get them. 

Johnny did what any other person would have done and assumed that something was wrong. “Do you actually want to be with me, Taeyong?” Johnny had asked him one morning, after Taeyong had spent the night at his place. 

Taeyong nodded but quickly realised this was one of those scenarios that required a verbal response. “Yeah, why?” in his head that sounded loud enough, but it was evident from Johnny’s look that it must have come out in a whisper. 

“I just—I sometimes feel like you’re doing things only because I want to and that I don’t know, you might not want to hurt my feelings, so you go along with it, but you don’t have to do anything just because of me, even if that means breaking up.”

_“I love spending time with you, I love the way you take care of me and never push me to do anything, I love the way you laugh at my jokes even when they’re horrible, I love the way you constantly support me, and you actually try to get into the things I like, I love you,”_ was what Taeyong would have liked to say. But he said nothing instead.

He even opened his mouth to say something, but he felt like he stopped breathing instead, and no matter how much he tried, nothing would come out. Not a single word, not a single sound. Johnny sighed, “I don’t think we should be together.”

Taeyong shook his head. “No,” he whispered as he felt his eyes tear up. 

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I really don’t want to do this, but I feel like it’s not fair on you when it always seems like you don’t know what you want, so at first I decided to wait, but eventually that only made me feel selfish,” Johnny bit his lip, “I don’t want to say goodbye to us, and close this chapter forever, but I think we might need a break to sort things out.”

Taeyong was now crying, making it even harder for him to say anything, so he did what he knew how to do best. He nodded. 

“Do you want me to take you home?” Taeyong nodded again. 

He waited on the couch and quickly messaged Doyoung to let him know he was coming back and that Johnny had just broken up with him. He turned his phone on silent, not wanting to read all the texts that he was probably going to get asking him questions about what had happened. 

Johnny, in the meantime, had put all of his clothes in his backpack and got changed as well. Taeyong was still wearing one of Johnny’s hoodies, but neither of them commented on that, and they stayed in silence until they arrived. 

“I’m sorry,” Johnny said before Taeyong could get out of the car. 

Taeyong turned around and smiled at him. “Me too,” was all he could say. He then opened the door and walked towards the entrance to his apartment block, where Doyoung was waiting for him still wearing his bunny pyjamas. 

Once Doyoung noticed him, he ran and hugged him. “I’m so sorry, babe.” Taeyong couldn’t understand why both Johnny and Doyoung seemed to be sorry when he was the one that was to blame, when he was the one that fucked up, when he was the one that couldn’t do something as basic as speaking. 

Taeyong decided to go to therapy again, not remembering why he had decided to stop in the first place. His new therapist was the first person to ever mention that he could have been suffering from selective mutism. Seeing the confusion on his face, she started telling him how it usually presents in kids, how it works, why it happens, and Taeyong, as much as he felt understood, he was also frustrated. He felt like it was almost too late. He had lost too much already.

His therapist helped him figure out if there were kind of patterns in the different triggers and how his body and mind reacted. Slowly he started to understand himself better, but he also knew that it was going to take time and that he wasn’t just going to be able to engage in a regular conversation normally in the matter of a few days. 

So Taeyong waited. Ten, who had gotten closer to Johnny, had suggested telling him about it to make things easier for Taeyong, but the latter refused, wanting to do it himself. It was only months later that he decided to message Johnny.

A few days later, he was waiting at the same spot where they first met each other. When Johnny arrived, he slowly approached him, and sat in front of him. “Hello,” Taeyong smiled.

“See? This time I didn’t scare you to death.” They both laughed softly. “I missed you, you know? I sometimes wondered if either of us were just going to find someone else and move on, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s impossible for anyone else to beat you.”

Taeyong hissed jokingly. “Awh, that’s too bad, I called you here today to tell you that I found someone else, we’re getting married, and we’re gonna have five kids.”

They laughed together again. “Five kids, huh? Isn’t that a bit much?”

“I don’t know,” Taeyong shrugged, “we can discuss it at some point.” They fell in a comfortable silence as they both looked at the students that were finishing up their classes and getting ready to go home. “I think I owe you an explanation,” Taeyong said at some point. 

Johnny opened his mouth to say something but decided against it instead. Taeyong took a deep breath, and for the first time, he _talked_. He told Johnny about his childhood, all the bits that he had skipped during past conversations, he told him how he didn't even say good night back to his dad before he left because he couldn't, he told him why he treasures his friends so much, he told him about the most recent events and how he finally felt like he could get better. 

He did stop every so often, trying to gather his thoughts and to remind himself that nothing bad was going to happen, that everything was fine, and Johnny just waited for him and reassured him when he could sense Taeyong was struggling. At some point, he must have stopped for a couple of minutes, and he couldn’t remember what he was saying, but Johnny just played with his hands and gave him as much time as he needed. 

“I wanted to stop you, you know?” he continued. “When you broke up with me, there were so many things I wanted to say, but I couldn’t, and I hated myself so much, not only because I couldn’t speak, but also because I couldn’t help but think.

“I thought that my silence was probably only hurting you, that maybe I deserved to be broken up with and you deserved better anyway, I couldn’t stop my thoughts just like I couldn’t say anything, no matter how much I tried. But now I’m glad you did that.”

Johnny understood. He knew he didn’t mean it in a negative way, he knew that they needed space, they both needed to work on themselves before getting back together again. 

“I’m done, by the way,” Taeyong let him know, feeling like Johnny must have just been waiting for him to maybe say something else. 

Johnny cleared his throat, and then it was his turn to speak. He didn’t struggle as much as Taeyong, for obvious reasons, as he apologised, as he promised to try his best to understand from now on but also as he told him how proud he was for everything Taeyong had managed to do so far.

It wasn’t going to be easy, they both knew that, but they could try. As it turned out, all the movies about love that Taeyong had watched didn’t lie: communication was definitely crucial in a relationship. He was just glad that now he was finally learning to talk again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for getting to the end :)  
> If you think I should change the tags or rating, please let me know!
> 
> Also, if you would like to know more about selective mutism, here are some sources: [NHS (U.K.), ](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/selective-mutism/)[ASHA (U.S.)](https://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/Selective-Mutism/), [list for specific countries.](http://www.selective-mutism.eu/)
> 
> If you're interested, here's my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/agustdolce) and here's my [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/agustdolce) :)  
> Stay safe and stay inside as much as possible!


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